MARSHALL, Mich. — The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice have reached a settlement with Enbridge Energy Limited Partnership after an oil spill, from one of their pipelines, fouled the Kalamazoo River in 2010.
Enbridge, the oil transport company out of Canada, was penalized $61 million for violating the Clean Water Act for the spill in Marshall six years ago this month. And they were fined another $1 million for the spill in Romeoville, Illinois.
"I have travelled through here before being horrified at the numbers," said U.S. Assistant Attorney General John Cruden during a press conference at Saylor's Landing. "Over 20,000 barrels of oil, significant number probably the largest inland oil spill in our history, flooding down rivers here and affecting the economy and affecting everything associated with this area."
Enbridge also agreed to spend at least $110 million on improvements and spill prevention measures across their 2,000 miles of pipelines in the Great Lakes region, according to the EPA. They're required to replace close to 300 miles of pipelines, after obtaining necessary approvals. Enbridge's Lakehead System delivers approximately 1.7 million barrels of oil in the U.S. daily.
"We fully accept the penalties and enhanced safety measures in the agreement," said Enbridge Vice President for U.S. Operations Brad Shamla during a press conference in Emmett Township. "You can’t go through something like this and not change. And, we did."
Enbridge is also reimbursing the state and federal government $5.4 million that was spent in the cleanup and all future costs from the spill.
"Millions of dollars were spent by the environmental protection agency and the Coast Guard to do this clean-up," said Cruden. "It is not right for the federal taxpayer to have to pay that. It should be the people who actually did it. In this case it was Enbridge."
Enbridge released a statement Wednesday. In it, Mark Maki, President for the Enbridge Partnership says:
“From the beginning, we’ve taken responsibility for the Line 6B release. We accept the civil penalties and enhanced safety measures in the Decree. The enhanced safety measures included in the Decree are consistent with our approach to safety and integrity and our current practices and have largely been implemented over the past six years. In fulfilling the terms of the agreement, we will cooperate with the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”
You can watch a 2010 FOX 17 story about the oil spill below:
